A dolphin eating community in Japan has been found to have dangerously high mercury levels a government lab reported on Sunday.

Mercury

The residents of the town of Taiji have a diet extremely high in whale and dolphin meat that is thought to be responsible for the high levels of mercury found in their hair.

Build-up

Mercury builds up as it moves up the food chain from small fish to large predators, such as dolphins, swordfish and tuna. Recent studies published by the Japanese government show bottlenose dolphins have 1000 times the amount of mercury content of sardines.

Miniamata Disease

Mercury poisoning can result in severe damage to the body’s nervous system, causing spasms, sensory loss, birth defects and even death. The condition is known as Miniamata disease in Japan since a chemical company was linked to the large scale dumping of mercury into the sea off the southern island Kyushu over 30 years in the last century resulting in the deaths many members of the local populace.

Despite higher than average levels of mercury the National Institute for Minamata Disease has found no ill effects in the 1,137 tested. Most at risk of mercury poisoning are children and pregnant women and it is not clear if these people were amongst the participants.

Eating Poison

Conservationists have adopted the mercury issue as a reason to halt the killing of Taiji’s dolphins and as a means of protesting against Japan’s whaling activities. A subject Oscar winning documentary The Cove, made about Taiji’s dolphin slaughter, focussed on closely. The director Louis Psihoyos said “If you’re eating dolphin meat, you’re eating poison, and if you’re eating a lot of dolphin meat, you’re eating a lot of poison”.

In the Future

Joanna Tempowski, a scientist working on chemical safety for the World Health Organisation, has said that despite ill effects not being obvious now damage from mercury poisoning may become evident in the future. Follow up tests will be carried out in March next year, with outside experts being invited along in order to counter accusations that the governments own laboratory’s results were impossible with such high levels of mercury found.